A diplomatic row erupted between Argentina and Chile after Argentine Air Force General Staff chief Brigadier General Gustavo Javier Valverde said in a Sunday podcast interview that "Magellan, the south, the Drake, all of that is sovereignty," prompting Chile's foreign ministry to announce a formal note of protest. Chile's sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan (the strategic southern passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific, and a key shipping alternative to the Panama Canal) is enshrined in the 1881 Boundary Treaty and the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and Santiago called on Argentine officials to be "responsible" with their statements. Argentina's foreign ministry moved quickly to contain the fallout, issuing a statement reaffirming that both treaties are "fully in force and considered definitive" — marking the first diplomatic friction between the ideologically aligned governments of Chilean President José Antonio Kast and Argentine President Javier Milei.